The summer of ’87 shimmered with heat and the crack of wooden bats. For me, it was the summer of playing baseball and collecting baseball cards. My best friend, Mikey, lived two doors down, and our backyards were a sprawling, weed-ridden version of Yankee Stadium.

Our games were legendary, at least in our minds. We’d spend hours arguing over rules we’d made up on the fly, like “Automatic Homerun if you hit it over Mrs. Henderson’s prize-winning petunias.” (That rule got revoked after Mikey shattered a clay pot.) We used a battered, taped-up Louisville Slugger and a baseball that was more tape than leather.

But the real magic happened when we weren’t playing. After a particularly grueling game where I’d pitched a “no-hitter” (mostly because Mikey couldn’t hit a beach ball), we’d retreat to my porch, sweaty and triumphant, and pull out our baseball card collections.

Those cards were our currency, our history books, our dreams. We’d spread them out on the worn wooden planks, the glossy images of our heroes staring back at us. 1987 Topps was the year, and we had stacks of them. We’d pore over the stats on the back, debating the merits of Don Mattingly versus Wade Boggs, or whether Jose Canseco was really going to hit 50 home runs.

We’d trade with the ferocity of Wall Street brokers. “I’ll give you a Rickey Henderson for two Mark McGwires and a rookie Wally Joyner!” Mikey would yell, his eyes gleaming. I’d scrutinize the cards, weighing their value, before reluctantly agreeing.

The smell of bubblegum that came with the packs, that pink, sugary slab, was as much a part of the experience as the cards themselves. We’d chew it until it lost its flavor, then stick it to the underside of the porch railing, where it joined a colorful, sticky constellation of past chewing sessions.

Sometimes, we’d ride our bikes to the corner store, our pockets jingling with allowance money, and buy a few more packs. The anticipation of ripping open the wax paper, the hope of finding a rare card, was almost as thrilling as the games themselves.

We’d organize our cards in shoeboxes, carefully separating the “keepers” from the “traders.” We dreamed of owning a complete set, of finding a mint condition 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle in some dusty attic. We imagined ourselves as baseball legends, our faces gracing future cards, our stats immortalized in tiny print.

Those afternoons on the porch, surrounded by baseball cards and the sounds of summer, were the best. It wasn’t just about the players or the stats. It was about the shared passion, the camaraderie, the feeling that anything was possible, especially with a good curveball and a lucky pack of cards. It was a time when baseball cards weren’t investments, but tiny, tangible pieces of a summer that would live on in our memories forever.